READING, England - It's wool caps and gloves all over Madejski Stadium, just above freezing. Most of the 21,893 fans expect to be in the elements. There aren't many luxury boxes and isn't much grumbling - until the game ends and the Reading Football Club is booed off the field.

This is home for Bobby Convey. He operates in a competitive cauldron as intense as any in American sports, playing in the country where his sport was born. The Northeast Philadelphia native left the William Penn Charter School in East Falls after his freshman year to pursue a life in soccer, turned professional at 16, and made it to the world's toughest proving ground, the English Premier League.

"It's cutthroat," said Convey, now 24 years old. "You see a kicker [in the NFL] miss a field goal and he's cut the next day. That's how it is here."

Convey, who played for the United States in the last World Cup, is part of a wave of Philadelphia athletes making their fortunes far from the spotlight at home. He is in a provincial city an hour west of London, the first soccer player raised in Philadelphia to make it in England's top division.

Not that he's guaranteed to stay in the Premier League. Imagine a system in which the Reading Phillies could make it to the National League, or the Philadelphia Phillies could fall back to triple A, or even eventually to double A. There is a system of promotion and relegation in English soccer, and in most soccer leagues overseas.

If Reading drops down from the Premier League, salaries automatically go down "substantially," Convey said. He has an average salary for his small-market club - about $1 million a year.

After finishing eighth among 20 teams last season, Reading is in a fierce battle to stay up. The bottom three teams will be sent down, and Reading is right on the line with 10 games left, tied for 17th place, although it is really 18th because of tiebreakers.

"The difference between 17th and 18th in our league is probably worth $100 million to our owner," Convey said. "In the U.S., no one's going up, no one's going down. Over here, it's results, and there's pressure, and there's millions of dollars on every game. I have to perform."

As Reading FC finished a fairy tale, a three-decade rise from England's fourth division to the top, Convey was in the middle of it. One local newspaper named him the club's player of the year in 2005-06, the season the club earned its promotion to the Premier League. The day Reading sealed its promotion, the entire stadium chanted, "Olé, olé, olé, olé, Convey, Convey!"

But that's ancient history. The club has talked of plans to increase the seating capacity from 24,000 to 38,000 if Reading stays in the Premier League. In addition to the pressures, the grind is unrelenting.

"This year, we trained on Christmas Day and traveled in the afternoon," Convey said.

In this town - think Reading, Pa., with a livelier downtown shopping district instead of the outlets outside town - Convey is every bit the familiar sight the Phillies' Pat Burrell and the Eagles' Brian Westbrook are in Philadelphia. Wearing a tailored black suit, Convey walked through the lobby of the high-end Millennium Hotel, attached to Madejski Stadium.

This was just after a game. Convey made it a few steps before a teenage girl asked for a photo. Her dad immediately popped out a camera. After Convey sat down in the corner of the hotel's restaurant, a little boy pointed at him, eyes wide. The boy ran to his parents to report his discovery.

"There's nothing else in Reading," Convey said. "There's no [American] football team here, no basketball team, no baseball teams - nothing. Just one soccer team. I used to live right in the middle of town, so people would come up to my apartment and knock on the door."

He has recently gotten engaged, to an American woman from Charleston, S.C., and figured he had better move out of town for her privacy.

For the first time since October, Convey wasn't on the field that February day against Bolton, in a 2-0 loss. Convey had three or four stitches still in his shin after having taken a cleat three days earlier against Chelsea. The shin "was bleeding pretty bad," he said. The usual week between games would have been fine, Convey said, but three days didn't leave time for the swelling to go down.

The injury no longer an issue, Convey has to wonder when he will get back in the lineup.

"You want your team to win," Convey said. "It's a Catch-22. When you don't play, you know the only way you're going to play is if the team doesn't do well - our coach doesn't change a winning team, so you just don't play. But you don't want the team to lose. That doesn't benefit you, either."

When his game is on, Convey knows he belongs. Earlier this season, when Reading knocked off Liverpool, one of the league's richest clubs, the Times of London awarded Convey the highest grade of any player on either team.

But the proving never stops.

"People will do anything to play," Convey said. "It's a team, but there are no friends. Training is not friendly at all. People tackle each other. People get in fights in training."

Convey said it again: There are no friends. "It's not like, 'Oh, go have fun and juggle and do all the stuff people think sports are.' We work. It's a job. It's a great job. It's an easy life compared to a lot of other people. But we work at it."

Quite a few American goalkeepers have made it in the Premier League. Reading's first-rate goalkeeper, Marcus Hahnemann, is an American (from Seattle), one of three now starting in the Premier League. The success rate for field players is more limited, and there still are suspicions when young American hotshots show up. Convey related a story from when he first got to the club in 2004 and hadn't yet really gotten a chance.

"One of my teammates, in front of everyone, yelled out, 'I can't believe we bought an American for 800,000 pounds!" - referring to the transfer fee Reading had paid Major League Soccer to obtain Convey, the equivalent of about $1.6 million.

The teammate kept railing at Convey, "Americans don't know anything about football!"

"I didn't even really know him or my teammates yet," Convey said. "But soon I learned, in England, guys try to talk a big game."

He said that after he signed with Reading, leaving DC United of Major League Soccer, which earned him a reported $500,000 salary, he also was a victim of his own unrealistic expectations, thinking he would play right away. When he didn't get on the field much, he talked to his agent about whether he should look for a new club. He admitted to being miserable. His parents wanted him to come home.

"You can either fall down and stay down or try to get up," Convey said. "I wanted to prove myself and not give in. . . . No one is going to help you here. The coaches are worried about the players that are playing. They don't have time to sit down with every player and say, 'Look, you have to do this better and this better.' You have to figure it out on your own."

The next season, Convey broke through and assumed a starring role. In some ways, Convey said, having success so far from home at such a young age was just as difficult as struggling.

"Even when I do well, I don't have my family around to show the bottle of champagne you get for being man of the match, and I don't get to share a lot of these memories with them day-to-day," Convey said. "There has been nothing harder than to play well and come home to no one."

Just as they do at an Eagles game, the fans have their opinions.

Kicking a soccer ball with his father outside the stadium, 10-year-old Christopher Jones was asked about Convey.

"He's really good," the boy said. "But he's not playing as well lately."

The fact that this boy and his father, Mike, were there the morning after Reading's game gives an idea of the level of devotion. Christopher wore a blue-and-white-striped Reading FC jersey as he kicked the ball, keeping it on the pavement under gusty winds. His father, who wore a Reading FC jacket, explained that they drive 90 minutes from a town near the English Channel for all the home games, and also get to some road games.

They had driven to the game the day before with Mike's 77-year-old dad, who used to live in Reading and would take Mike to games when the club was in the fourth division. Mike parked the car the day before while his dad and his son walked up a hill to the stadium. At the top of the hill, the older man collapsed to the ground outside Gate 10.

"It was just me and my grandpop, unconscious," Christopher said.

By the time Mike got there, his father was being loaded into an ambulance. It turned out to be either a mild heart attack or a lack of oxygen. They missed the game, but the grandpop survived. He was in the hospital. While they were waiting for visiting hours, Mike and Christopher decided to go to the stadium and buy a ball from the Mega-Store by the front gate and kick it around to keep the boy occupied.

They weren't fair-weather fans, Mike said. He remembered the Liverpool game in early December and Convey's role in the big victory.

"He had a fantastic pass to [James] Harper for the third goal," Mike said as kept kicking the ball to his son.

At its best, Convey's game is about starting the action. He gets the ball and his body moving quickly in the right direction, creating chances that wouldn't otherwise exist.

His coaches at Philadelphia's FC Coppa youth club used to say Convey came "from another planet." When he was as young as 11, his coaches on the State Select Team were told not to instruct him, that it might mess up his natural instincts.

After his freshman year, Convey left Penn Charter to join a full-time Florida training camp for the under-17 U.S. national team. His first roommate was Landon Donovan, another young American star.

Convey didn't have soccer in his genes, but there was athleticism. His father, Bob, was a top Catholic League point guard at Father Judge High School in Philadelphia and an honorable-mention all-American at St. Francis (Pa.) College. Bobby's older sister, Kelly, was a soccer all-American at Penn State. His younger brother, Tim, captained the soccer team at Georgetown.

But as Convey talked recently, Reading had just brought in another midfielder, from the Czech Republic. One of the team's other top midfielders, who can also play the same left-wing position as Convey, starts for the Irish national team. Nothing is guaranteed.

"It's a thin line between not playing at all and starting every single game," Convey said.

One thing Convey likes about the situation, he said, is that playing time on his club isn't determined by salary, politics or favoritism. In his mind, it's strictly performance. He feels he is in a true meritocracy.

"You're not guaranteed to play, but if you work hard and do well, you are guaranteed to play," Convey said. "Really, here, money is taken out of the equation, because everybody does pretty well."

Convey sat most of last season after having major reconstructive surgery on his right knee. He had injured it at the World Cup, then had a second operation on the joint in March. He came home for his rehabilitation, he said, because he was on crutches for six weeks.

It was difficult, Convey said, and coming back this year, he can relate to what Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb and others have gone through in returning from major knee surgery.

"You're not as strong, you're not as quick, you're not as fit," Convey said. "This year has definitely been a trying one for me. When you have a big knee surgery, it is always in the back of your mind when you are playing, and I think that takes time to go away.

"I haven't been the best this year, which has been disappointing. I always want to play well, and haven't lately, to be honest. I am definitely getting better, though, with every game, and my knee and body are getting stronger. It has just been a slow process, and I know I need to be patient."

Even the honors that come with playing at the highest level present hurdles. As Convey sat at the restaurant, a team employee brought him two sets of soccer shoes, a yellow pair and a blue pair. He needed his boots because he was traveling the next morning to the airport, to get on a plane for Houston, to join the U.S. national team. He would start against Mexico four days later.

He wants to represent his country, but under the best of circumstances, he couldn't get back to Reading for five days, until the day before his club's next game, after an overnight flight. There was no way he would be included in the lineup after that kind of travel.

"We're not playing 'FIFA 2008' right now," Convey said, referring to a popular Wii soccer game. "This is a real person's body. It takes its toll."

However, when Convey talks about Premier League players' doing anything they can to get on the field, he isn't just talking about his teammates. Even on the toughest days, this is where he wants to be.

"I would have kicked myself forever if I didn't come," Convey said.

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